


Exorcise

by Missy



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Cursed objects, Curses, Exorcisms, Gen, Mild Angst, Minor Character Death, Possession, Righting Crimes Through Possessed Jewelry, Trick or Treat: Trick, mild snark, slumber parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 10:43:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21135419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Stacey saw the necklace for the first time at the five and dime.She will, in a few weeks, wish she had never bought it.





	Exorcise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OzQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OzQueen/gifts).

Stacey saw the necklace at the five and dime, sitting in a pile of tangled up chains and rings that would turn a person’s hand green if you looked at them sideways.

Shops like this were really more Claudia’s thing – she could wear the weird plastic jewelry she’d found, or make art with what she could afford – but Stacey in all of her sophistication had wandered into the room and begun to rifle through the chains and rings, as if someone else had demanded she do it.

The necklace she picked was rose-gold, with several pink enamel flowers on it. She put it on, the second she got out of the shop. Stacey didn’t know why – it wasn’t sophisticated. It didn’t scream New York at her.

But she wore it around the next day at school, at home. Even in the shower and to bed.

*** 

She didn’t realize anything was wrong until Kristy told her she’d seen Stacey walking through her backyard as if she were in a trance in her nightclothes.

That she was holding a bloody knife clutched in her hand was an ugly twist to the moment.

The next morning there were reports in the morning news about a man who had been accused of murdering a local woman turning up dead, stabbed and then drowned in a well on his property.

Mary Ann found her the next night, dancing in circles in her nightgown in the backyard.

Stacey couldn’t remember what she was doing, but the knife had old blood on it. They took her to Kristy’s place; they threw the knife into Mrs. Porter’s goldfish pond.

The girls took turns keeping an eye on Stacey from that moment on in shifts. She hated it. It was hard enough being constantly vigilant about her diabetes, but now weird fuge states that left her untrustworthy as a sitter?

Sleepwalking stabbings was another matter entirely.

*** 

The sleepover had everything –chips, diabetic candy options for Stacey, and a large book borrowed from Mrs. Porter about exorcising spirits.

Stacey remembered none of the process, but apparently she’d thrown a cheesecake into Dawn’s face and called Mary Ann a goody two-shoes.

Kristy was the one who ripped the necklace from her neck and flung it across the room.

The girls screamed as it crawled across the room for them, trying to reach the warmth of human flesh, the power it had once possessed.

Claudia had gathered it up with barbecue tongs in an old Pepsi can and shoved it in her Caboodle case to keep it safe.

This still wasn’t the worst sleepover Stacey had ever been to.

*** 

Stacey felt more like herself the next morning, when Mrs. Porter showed up to collect the necklace. The previous owner had turned out to belong to the murdered woman, had ended up slipped into the pile of fake gold at the store. Apparently, the murdered woman had been in Porter’s coven.

“I thought you weren’t a witch,” a flustered Kristy said.

Mrs. Porter smiled. “Dear, if we told everyone about our inclinations we’d never survive a second trial.”

The next day, walking home from school, Stacey saw Mrs. Porter in her backyard, humming as she weeded her herb garden.

The fake rose-gold of the chain lay draped across her neck, giving her outfit its only spark of color.


End file.
